To clear one thing up right off the bat, you can't pick up your phone, dial a toll free number, blow 2600Hz, and get a free call. Blue boxing in the US, as commonly practiced in the 1970's, is impossible.

Make sure you always pay attention to the date of the file you're reading. Most information found in files written in the 80's and 90's is out of date.

I've thought about this before, and I really don't think there's any true or even clear method of how exactly to get your phreak on. Like hacking, there's a ton of different interpretations of it, but at the core of it all, it's exploration of the telephone network. Personally, I think the best way to enjoy it is to just build one step at a time from mild curiosities. Ideally, it's best to use any excuse to pick up a phone and dial something. Even the most menial excuse you can think of to dial another number, pick up a random PBX phone, or whatever will more than likely spill you into something interesting. My only other suggestion would be to do most things from a landline, or anything like it you may have. The better the phone, the more you're going to hear.

That being said, if you're looking for links to help start you off, you can always hear what got the phreaks of the Seventies interested;http://www.wideweb.com/phonetrips/

phreaking is just really about learning and exploring... the "black hat" equivalent of phreaking for the sole purpose of stealing calls is pretty much a dead issue since calls cost practically nothing now...

most of the text files that you are going find on line are going to be outdated...

beige boxing is still relevant for POTS lines, but is basically theft of services if you are not connected to your own line...

not many people have 900 Mhz cordless phones, especially not ones that do not have DSS... there are a few still out there, but you are not going to hear much conversations with a radio scanner...

it really depends on what you are interested in learning.. do you want to learn how different PBX systems work? do you want to find interesting stuff connected to different phone lines, modems, test lines, recordings?

i would recommend starting by doing some hand scans... pick an NPA-NXX and scan a bunch of numbers... most of the time interesting telephone company related stuff can be found in the 99xx range... when scanning block your CID to prevent call backs from people, but anything interesting might use ANI, so learning how to get around ANI would be something to learn up on... 800-444-4444 will read back your ANI 804-222-1111 http://testcall.com/222-1111.html has got some interesting stuff you can do - it reads back the name on the caller ID, as well as doing DMTF decoding and an echo test...

This is open forum so I think it's good to remind what phreaking is really about

narrated by Decoder

phreaking/hacking etc. is like car tuning; if you want to be a tuner first you have to understand car mechanics better than average car mechanic and then with many tries and errors you can find out new methods, techniques and other stuff to explore the system so shortly speaking start learning telecom basics and how exactly phone system work

phreaking is just really about learning and exploring... the "black hat" equivalent of phreaking for the sole purpose of stealing calls is pretty much a dead issue since calls cost practically nothing now...

most of the text files that you are going find on line are going to be outdated...

beige boxing is still relevant for POTS lines, but is basically theft of services if you are not connected to your own line...

not many people have 900 Mhz cordless phones, especially not ones that do not have DSS... there are a few still out there, but you are not going to hear much conversations with a radio scanner...

it really depends on what you are interested in learning.. do you want to learn how different PBX systems work? do you want to find interesting stuff connected to different phone lines, modems, test lines, recordings?

i would recommend starting by doing some hand scans... pick an NPA-NXX and scan a bunch of numbers... most of the time interesting telephone company related stuff can be found in the 99xx range... when scanning block your CID to prevent call backs from people, but anything interesting might use ANI, so learning how to get around ANI would be something to learn up on... 800-444-4444 will read back your ANI 804-222-1111 http://testcall.com/222-1111.html has got some interesting stuff you can do - it reads back the name on the caller ID, as well as doing DMTF decoding and an echo test...

I was kind of curious about the scanner thing...I first got into ham radio and scanning because of the PLA's pranks with the modified Yaesu radios at drive-thrus. I came for the havoc, but stayed because...well radio is really freaking sweet (listening to someone's cordless convo was always fun too). Anyways, as the 900 MHz phone users die/upgrade to the higher frequency phones, is listening to them still possible on radios equipped for the higher frequencies (IIRC the newer phone bands are close to the more experimental ham bands) or are they all encrypted now?

phreaking is just really about learning and exploring... the "black hat" equivalent of phreaking for the sole purpose of stealing calls is pretty much a dead issue since calls cost practically nothing now...

most of the text files that you are going find on line are going to be outdated...

beige boxing is still relevant for POTS lines, but is basically theft of services if you are not connected to your own line...

not many people have 900 Mhz cordless phones, especially not ones that do not have DSS... there are a few still out there, but you are not going to hear much conversations with a radio scanner...

it really depends on what you are interested in learning.. do you want to learn how different PBX systems work? do you want to find interesting stuff connected to different phone lines, modems, test lines, recordings?

i would recommend starting by doing some hand scans... pick an NPA-NXX and scan a bunch of numbers... most of the time interesting telephone company related stuff can be found in the 99xx range... when scanning block your CID to prevent call backs from people, but anything interesting might use ANI, so learning how to get around ANI would be something to learn up on... 800-444-4444 will read back your ANI 804-222-1111 http://testcall.com/222-1111.html has got some interesting stuff you can do - it reads back the name on the caller ID, as well as doing DMTF decoding and an echo test...

I was kind of curious about the scanner thing...I first got into ham radio and scanning because of the PLA's pranks with the modified Yaesu radios at drive-thrus. I came for the havoc, but stayed because...well radio is really freaking sweet (listening to someone's cordless convo was always fun too). Anyways, as the 900 MHz phone users die/upgrade to the higher frequency phones, is listening to them still possible on radios equipped for the higher frequencies (IIRC the newer phone bands are close to the more experimental ham bands) or are they all encrypted now?

ANI - Automatic Number Identification (what 911 toll free numbers and the phone company use to identify the number of a caller, more accurate than caller ID and difficult to spoof)

ANAC - Automatic Number Announcement Circuit - a number that reads back your ANI, if you can find an ANAC that reads back your ANI-II it is very valuable, the additional 2 digits read back the class of service, POTS, ACTS, etc..

POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service... regular land line phone service over a copper pair

as for newer cordless phones, i would never say anything was *impossible* but i would say that it is nearly impossible to pick up any modern cordless phones with a scanner, DSS (Digital Spread Spectrum) was introduced when 900 Mhz phones were on the market to combat eavesdropping and wireless cross talk... then FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) was introduced as an improvement over DSS during the live of 2.4Ghz phones, I am unsure of what type of encryption is being used with newer DECT phones, but I would assume that it would be even more secure than previous encryption methods.. not to mention DSS and FHSS continually scan for the best channel and are constantly changing frequencies which is why modern cordless phones do not have a channel button.. so even if the signal was out in the open, unless you had a way to follow the signal (similar to trunking radio systems) it would be nearly impossible to stick around for the entire conversation...

There's an online telcom glossary that's super huge. It allows you to type in a word or acronym to look up or you can choose from an a-z list. This is the best place, IMO, to look up any that come up which you need to know. You can't find anything more extensive than this place. Here it the glossary :

Just letting you know where it came from as an FYI. The site it comes from is the U.S. Dept of Commerce and National Communication System site which has says this at the top :FED-STD-1037C (Federal Standard 1037C)

TELECOMMUNICATIONS: GLOSSARY OFTELECOMMUNICATION TERMS

Here's a screenshot of the official government site I got the link from :

It's the most recent glossary (2007). This glossary should have every one in it.

This glossary comes from atis.org which is listed on NANPA as a resource. On NANPA, is says this about ATIS.org :

www.atis.orgThis is the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions site. It has several sections of interest for numbering.

There's an online telcom glossary that's super huge. It allows you to type in a word or acronym to look up or you can choose from an a-z list. This is the best place, IMO, to look up any that come up which you need to know. You can't find anything more extensive than this place. Here it the glossary :

Just letting you know where it came from as an FYI. The site it comes from is the U.S. Dept of Commerce and National Communication System site which has says this at the top :FED-STD-1037C (Federal Standard 1037C)

TELECOMMUNICATIONS: GLOSSARY OFTELECOMMUNICATION TERMS

Here's a screenshot of the official government site I got the link from :

It's the most recent glossary (2007). This glossary should have every one in it.

This glossary comes from atis.org which is listed on NANPA as a resource. On NANPA, is says this about ATIS.org :

www.atis.orgThis is the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions site. It has several sections of interest for numbering.

INC documents, where you can find all of the assignment guidelines for numbering resources.

INC working documents, where you will find documentation on, for example, what alternatives the industry is considering when we run out of 10-digit telephone numbers.

nice resource.. i was building my own acronym database a while back.. i got side tracked and never got around to finishing it not sure if the link works, but i only got about 135 or so https://spreadsheets...VWc&hl=en#gid=0

There's an online telcom glossary that's super huge. It allows you to type in a word or acronym to look up or you can choose from an a-z list. This is the best place, IMO, to look up any that come up which you need to know. You can't find anything more extensive than this place. Here it the glossary :

Just letting you know where it came from as an FYI. The site it comes from is the U.S. Dept of Commerce and National Communication System site which has says this at the top :FED-STD-1037C (Federal Standard 1037C)

TELECOMMUNICATIONS: GLOSSARY OFTELECOMMUNICATION TERMS

Here's a screenshot of the official government site I got the link from :

It's the most recent glossary (2007). This glossary should have every one in it.

This glossary comes from atis.org which is listed on NANPA as a resource. On NANPA, is says this about ATIS.org :

www.atis.orgThis is the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions site. It has several sections of interest for numbering.

INC documents, where you can find all of the assignment guidelines for numbering resources.

INC working documents, where you will find documentation on, for example, what alternatives the industry is considering when we run out of 10-digit telephone numbers.

nice resource.. i was building my own acronym database a while back.. i got side tracked and never got around to finishing it not sure if the link works, but i only got about 135 or so https://spreadsheets...VWc&hl=en#gid=0

Good lookin spreadsheet. I was thinking once of making my own but then I found atis.org's and that saved me the trouble, plus way more complete than I'd ever have time to make.

Good lookin spreadsheet. I was thinking once of making my own but then I found atis.org's and that saved me the trouble, plus way more complete than I'd ever have time to make.

yea, especially since everything in telecom has multiple names for the same thing... even some acronyms have multiple meanings depending on the context where they are used... it can get difficult to explain certain things to a noob getting into telecom.. when i started building that spreadsheet i was trying to build something for people not familiar with some terminology... i guess i can just use the link you provided now.. going to book mark that one...

And as thoughtPhreaker pointed out: Phonetrips.org is where it's at! (gotta look closely for the mp3 directory)

"Not all phones were created equal." Evan Doorbell

To whom are you referring ?

And is that a pic of yourself by your name or is it just a random one of no one you know? Just wondering since people place all sorts of whatnot there, like myself. Guess nobody here has been there recently....

Btw, that is not my personal pic by my username (since I'm on that topic) - I do not resemble a schematic, just an fyi. ... haha .

Very true. For the newb that's necessary knowledge - "not all phones are created equal". Same for the route to connect a dialed number, to name a few.